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PUNCHING IN: Contractor Watchdog on the Move?

The Trump
administration is expected to unveil its full 2018 budget request in the coming
weeks, an Office of Management and Budget spokesperson recently told reporter Jay-Anne Casuga. It’s going to take
more than a little SlimFast to accomplish the Labor Department belt tightening
that Trump called for in last month’s “skinny” budget request. The detailed
version should give us a better idea of just what programs he wants to slash to
get to the 21 percent DOL spending reduction he
proposed.

At least
some folks who do business with Uncle Sam are also waiting to see whether the
budget request includes a proposal to fold the Labor Department’s Office
of Federal Contract Compliance Programs into the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission.

The Heritage
Foundation has been calling for the move, which would make the EEOC responsible
for enforcing nondiscrimination and affirmative action requirements for federal
contractors, in addition to its job policing bias in the private sector
workplace discrimination. Some think the OFCCP is ripe for rejiggering as part
of Trump’s plan to streamline
government operations.

“Details will be released with the full budget in the second half
of this month,” the OMB spokesperson told Jay-Anne last week, in response to a
question about a possible merger. For an administration that seems to live in
the “no comment” zone, that response will probably prick up some ears.

So is OFCCP moving to NoMa? If nothing else, the EEOC building
offers a fresher set of digs than Frances Perkins. Give us
your best budget predictions at copfer@bna.com and bpenn@bna.com or via Twitter: @chrisopfer and
@benjaminpenn.

Ben Penn: Bloomberg
Law subscribers can check out my exposé today on
the new political direction at the DOL’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs.
ILAB is considered by some folks from the business and labor communities as a
critical agency in implementing the White House’s trade agenda by eradicating
foreign labor abuse.

The $60 million cut in ILAB grants called for in Trump’s skinny budget represents about 75 percent of the bureau’s annual appropriation. I’m told a
reduction of this magnitude would make it pretty much impossible for new trade
negotiations to prioritize worker protections overseas as a means of leveling
the playing field for U.S. workers.

ILAB has
avoided some cuts in the past, thanks to supporters in the Capitol. It’s not
clear who might be ILAB’s champion be on the Hill now that the old friend of
the bureau, former Senate labor committee leader Tom Harkin, is enjoying
retirement.

CO: Democrats and their supporters are licking
their chops over issues some think give them a fighting chance to win back some
control of the government in 2018, whether it’s the Comey saga or
Republican-backed moves to put Obamacare on life support. At least one labor
union, however, is focusing its fire on a slew of state and local elections
coming up later this year.

“We’ve got 67 mayoral and city council elections in 2017, two big
gubernatorial races and some down ticket stuff that we are actively gearing up
for,” Chris Sloan, the director of government affairs for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, recently told me. “I think the landscape for 2018 will become much more
clear in the third and fourth quarter of this year. That’s when we’ll determine
how and where we play. We are looking at some of the 2017 elections as sort of
a petri dish for what we can do.”

The two governor races are in purple states: Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Primary contests next month will determine who gets party bids to replace Terry
McAuliffe in the governor’s mansion in Richmond. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf
(D) is looking to ward off Republican challengers in a state that Trump carried
last year.

BP: Jani-King, which calls itself
the world’s largest commercial cleaning franchise company, may find out today whether
the Trump administration will carry on the Obama DOL’s crusade to take on its
entire business model.

Last fall - shortly before the election - the department sued Jani-King
for unpaid wages, after a four-year investigation found allegations that janitorial
franchise operators are actually direct employees of the company, owed minimum
wage and overtime pay. A judge shot down the initial lawsuit, then the
solicitor’s office filed an amended complaint last month. That was a week before
Labor Secretary Alex Acosta reported for duty.

DOL has until today to file a response to JaniKing’s request to
dismiss the case. I’ll be paying close attention to the docket as a test of how
fast Acosta’s leadership translates to revising the David Weil fissured economy
philosophy.

CO: A new law aimed at
protecting gig and other contract workers goes into effect in New York City
today. The Freelance Isn’t Free Act requires employers to pay gig workers
on time and to give them a written contract spelling out the details of their
deals. Perhaps most importantly, according to Freelancers Union founder Sara
Horowitz, is that the law gives lawyers an incentive to take up cases for
workers who get stiffed.

“The law provides for double damages and attorney fees in order to create a market for
lawyers,” Horowitz told me last week.

The
Freelancers Union is actively helping workers lawyer-up. The group released a
smartphone app over the weekend that connects workers with attorneys, who
themselves are members of the union. It gives attorneys on the platform 48
hours to respond to an inquiry.

“You get
matched with two lawyers and you pick one,” Horowitz said. “You could conceivably
be talking to a lawyer who is familiar with the law within a day.”

Just make
sure you pay them on time.

BP: We’re punching out. Daily
Labor Report subscribers can check back in with us during the week for
updates. One major American company is stepping up its lobbying efforts on an
interesting labor issue, and Tyrone Richardson has the
details. Paternity leave for pro
athletes? Carmen
Castro-Pagan is taking a look. Martin Berman-Gorvine is
reporting on another type of benefit for workers: student loan repayment.

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